


And I've Been Calling

by megyal



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-15
Updated: 2012-08-15
Packaged: 2017-11-12 04:54:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/486953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megyal/pseuds/megyal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry's been volunteered to be a part of a new Wizarding Singing Hotline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And I've Been Calling

**Author's Note:**

> For tigersilver's birthday!

The other operators were nice, really; after that very first hour or so, they managed to stop hovering over Harry like excitable clouds and go back to their own desks to take calls at the Mofles ( _Mobile-Floos_ , tiny audio-only versions, with shining strings of magic leading from them to listening-cones; Ron thought the name was _hilarious_ , something Fred would have thought up, and had spent many minutes laughing himself into a kind of wild hysteria that got everyone worried). Harry hadn't gotten a call as yet, so he sat and gazed at the teensy, flickering green flame and wondered how Luna had managed to talk him into this.

Probably after she found out about his strangely wide taste in music. Funny the many different types of songs one can know from underneath a staircase when a radio is turned up constantly and loudly to drown one's sobs; and he liked listening to Wizarding music on the wireless, now that he was on his own at Grimmauld Place. He'd gotten a lot of recordings from Mr. Weasley, and liked to have them playing almost constantly through the corridors of the old house. The music bounced from room to room, greeting him when he got home from classes, or seeping through the walls in a rather comforting mist of sound as he curled into bed. Hermione said that he had a very good memory, since he remembered so many songs. Harry thought it was only his auditory retention that was sharp, to make up for his horrible eyesight.

He actually jumped a little when his Mofle buzzed at him, and fumbled for the cone and his Training Manual. 

"Answer," he commanded the flame and it changed colour from green to blue as he flipped to the _Recommended Greetings_ page. "Hello," he read, "I'm here to sing for you. What would you like to hear?"

There was a short silence and a female voice murmured, "D'you know any Croaking Oatley?"

"Of course I do," Harry said, smiling so she'd hear it in his voice. He put down his Manual, smoothing down the crinkled cover. He'd spent a lot of hours just blinking at it. "How about some _Temptation on My Wand_?"

There was a soft sigh over the line and then the woman said, "Maybe a bit of _This Will Be The Last Charm_? I think that'll help...a bit."

As he sang, Harry became acutely aware of what he thought was the poor quality of his voice; it seemed almost reedy, even though he sang at a relatively low register. It was soft without the echoing presence of the tiles in his bathroom, and it seemed to lack impact or authority.

Nevertheless, the witch on the other end of his line cried when he was finished, and thanked him. Harry felt stunned at that. She wasn't thanking him for being Harry Potter; she was thanking a stranger for a bit of kindness.

Felt odd.

"My husband liked that song, when he....he liked it," she said. It seemed as if it was hard for her to create words, as if she'd forgotten how lips and tongue and teeth functioned. "Loved old Oatley, didn't he? Thank you, Merlin keep you," she said, and the Mofle went green again.

Harry set down his listening cone, and gazed at the tiny flame for a long time.

+

The Singing Hotline operated from Luna's house, the one she built right beside her father's. ( _Luna's Lullaby Line_ , that was what they called it; amongst friends that was. The _Three L;_ Hermione thought it was a massive waste of time, but Harry and Dean and Parvati and Dennis became regular volunteers. Ron showed up once, sang a few songs in his lovely, throaty, teary voice, and never came back.) They had their own chairs and desks with the Mofles connected to a special splitter that the Floo Network Authority had put in, so that all the Mofle-lines joined at that little silver device at one end, and a single line came out of the other, connecting to Luna's Floo. There was also a nice table set out with cokes and coffee and tea and biscuits, and fruit salads...and milk that Luna got from her cow, Darling. Luna believed drinking milk made one's voice sound nicer. No-one drank it, for Darling was of a purple so bright she nearly glowed when night fell and the milk came out just about the same shade.

The Hotline operated between six in the evening to midnight. That was the time, Luna said, when people were trying to fall asleep and couldn't, and they needed to hear someone's voice... just to make sure they were still here on this softly spinning earth and not falling off into a nightmare where there was still green death painting the night sky and broken windows of Hogwarts and distant screams of people known and unknown. Singing was nice and sweet if done quietly, so very quietly that it helped them sleep.

If not, it helped them to feel better.

That was Luna's hypothesis, but many people ended up crying more often than not, and Luna had to comfort Harry with the assertion that it was okay, it was all _cathartic_.

"Waste of time," Hermione would say quite regularly, biting off the ends of her words. Harry would look at her, loving her so much but wondering if she'd gotten so hard and tough during the war; or if she had always been like that, just grown into it naturally; or if she had to be that way now just to make sure Ron made it through each minute that passed him with careless regularity.

Harry came in on Thursdays and Sundays, which was fine, since he didn't have classes those days, and Fridays were for Ron and Hermione. Wizarding Criminal Law was what he was going after, not Auroring. Hermione was pleased and impressed at the amount of reading Harry willingly undertook, and Ron was slightly mournful about the whole Not Aurors thing for maybe five minutes before getting over it.

Harry liked it, even though his voice sounded so pale, but some people cried a little, some people cried a lot, and some not at all. 

He hoped they got some sleep.

+

Harry knew Malfoy's voice as soon as he heard through the Mofle. 

Most people asked, "Do you know this song," because they were hopeful, and nine times out of ten Harry could do something about that hope, but Malfoy said, "I _don't_ suppose you know any Elton John." Maybe he emphasized that second word because he didn't expect this experience to do much good; or because it wasn't too much of a stretch to think that, even now, wizards wouldn't know much of a Muggle singer; or because he didn't expect anything good to come out of a call to a number printed in the back of the Quibbler. Harry couldn't imagine him willingly holding a copy of the Quibbler anyway, much less reading it, but those were his tight vowels and his curved up consonants and the way he sounded like his father, only a little more tired, older.

Harry never would have thought that a person like Malfoy would have any problems sleeping, but on second thought, maybe he did.

Harry said, "I do know some Elton John," and there was such a long silence that Harry thought the connection had been terminated but the Mofle's singular flame was still blue.

Malfoy said, "Do you," and all the letters of his words were pressed down flat. 

_He know's it's me,_ Harry thought, _just as sure as I knew it was him._

"I do," is what he said out loud, uncurling his fingers from where they had been clenched against the wooden surface of his desk. "What--" his throat felt closed up and he swallowed to clear it, "what song? _Nikita_?"

He would never be able to sing, not like this, because this was _Malfoy_ , spoiled, self-serving git who wouldn't know anything sweet and good even if it walked up and--

"I like Empty Garden," Malfoy said. "Hey Johnny, that is."

"Me too." Harry was genuinely surprised at that. He and Malfoy liked the same thing, something as uncomplicated and beautiful as a song. A Muggle song.

Malfoy sounded as if he was trying to not to sigh when he asked, "So sing it, please?"

Harry sung it. He didn't put any more effort into it than he would have, because he had such a _thin_ voice, didn't he? He was no Celestina, and certainly no Elton. So he sung softly, coaxing the words through the line one by one. Malfoy listened, a silence that felt deep and dark. When Harry sang _he must have been a gardener that cared a lot_ in the second verse, Malfoy made a single sharp noise, but remained quiet for the rest of it.

"Sleep well," Harry said when he finished. The sound of Malfoy's breathing wavered through the line of the Mofle.

Malfoy said nothing. He simply disconnected the call.

+

When he called again at the same time the week after, he asked for Harry.

He didn't say, "I _don't_ suppose."

He said, "Do you know a song called _I've Seen All Good People_? Muggle song. First bit's really about chess, I think."

"No," Harry said, smiling because he _did_.

"I'll teach you, then. It'll...help others. Fall asleep, that is," Malfoy said, and his own smile, hesitant but present, curled in Harry's ear.

_fin_


End file.
